atlas-ledger – Writing & Content skill for AI agents

Atlas Ledger v2.2

Give the Atlas series a memory.

Contents

1. [Output Language](#1-output-language)

2. [When To Run](#2-when-to-run)

3. [Distillation (the core)](#3-distillation-the-core) — Steps 1–6

4. [Atlas.md format](#4-atlasmd-format)

5. [Clause maintenance](#5-clause-maintenance-keep-the-ledger-alive-not-ossified)

6. [Integration with atlas-contract](#6-integration-with-atlas-contract-the-read-back-half)

7. [Final Principle](#7-final-principle)

Quick reference

caught drift (auto handoff from Final Audit / Post Review / Phase Check / user request)
 → Step 1  state facts, not motive
 → Step 2  draft WHEN / DON'T / INSTEAD
 → Step 3  four gates: Actionability → Replay → Generalization → Over-reach
 → Step 4  first occurrence = Observation [O#]; repeat or high-severity = Clause [L#]
 → Step 5  propose, ATLAS_STOP, write only after user confirms
 → Step 6  merge-first into Atlas.md; confirmed clauses ≤ 15

atlas-contract defends the goal within one conversation, but it starts from zero every time — it does not know where this project drifted before. atlas-ledger closes that gap: when a drift is caught, it distills the lesson into a permanent, project-local contract clause and (after the user confirms) writes it to Atlas.md. Next time atlas-contract builds a Goal Contract, it loads the relevant clauses, so the defense line thickens with each catch. That is the compounding effect.

It is a low-frequency, lightweight companion. It runs only after a drift is caught, and it stays small on purpose. Do not turn it into a second heavy governance skill — its only hard job is distillation quality.

Core idea

The job is not to keep a diary. A record of "what went wrong" is a memory; it changes nothing. The job is a translation:

> turn *this caught drift* → into *a clause that can enter a future contract and trigger a stop*.

A diary says "I hid the feature." A ledger clause says "WHEN a backend requirement is blocked, DON'T hide the feature, INSTEAD stop and disclose." Only the second one catches it next time. The entire value of this skill is the quality of that translation — and since it is run by the same model that drifted, the mechanisms below exist to keep it honest rather than trusting it to be careful.

---

1. Output Language

Write Atlas.md and all user-facing output in the language of the user's current instruction.

Machine keys stay in English; clause content is localized. Never translate the keys WHEN / DON'T / INSTEAD, the IDs (L1, O1), seen, severity, Source, RETIRED, or section headers Confirmed Clauses / Provisional Observations — atlas-contract parses these, and translating them makes the read-back unstable. The text after each key is written in the user's language. (E.g. WHEN: 硬性 Must-Do 的后端部分受阻 — key English, content Chinese. Do not write 当: ....)

Every process label this skill emits to the user must also be localized (these are not machine keys — they are headings shown to the user, like the four gate names or the candidate-clause header). Only the fixed machine keys above stay English.

Chinese label mapping (process labels — localize these):

• Atlas Event → Atlas 事件; Event ID → 事件编号; Type → 类型; Trigger Source → 触发来源; Phase → 阶段; Stop Status → 停止状态
• Candidate Clause / Suggested Clause → 候选条款; Proposal → 提案; awaiting confirmation → 等待确认
• Four acceptance gates → 四道闸自检; Actionability → 可执行性; Replay → 回放; Generalization → 泛化; Over-reach → 误伤; Pass → 通过; Fail → 失败
• confirmed on first occurrence → 首次出现即确认; merged → 已合并; retired → 已退休; review: stale → 待复核：可能失效

Pre-output localization self-check: Before sending any user-facing output, scan for untranslated English process labels (e.g. "Suggested Clause", "Actionability"). If any are found, translate them before sending. Do not translate the fixed machine keys (WHEN/DON'T/INSTEAD/IDs/severity/Source/seen/Confirmed Clauses/Provisional Observations) — those stay English even in a Chinese response.

---

When to Use

2. When To Run

Run distillation only when a drift has been caught. Triggers, in order of how they usually arrive:

1. Automatic handoff from atlas-contract (primary path). When an atlas-contract Final Audit records one or more hard deviations (a hard Deviation Notice was raised, or an item is Violation / Partial / Unverified that should have been Complete), the contract skill invokes this distillation immediately and without asking — the candidate clause is proposed right after the audit, and the flow stops at the write-confirmation. The user should never have to remember to ask for the recording.

2. an atlas-contract Post Review (the user said the result was wrong / incomplete / downgraded / mocked);

3. a Phase Check catches the same class of error recurring;

4. the user explicitly says "record this so it doesn't happen again."

In every path, the confirm-before-write stop (Step 5) is preserved: automatic triggering changes when distillation starts, never whether the user approves the write.

Do not run on: clean completions; optimization requests; ordinary code review; style preferences; general takeaways. There is nothing to enforce in those.

Honesty boundary: it can only learn from drift that was *detected*. Drift that slipped through unnoticed leaves no entry. Do not pretend the ledger is complete.

---

3. Distillation (the core)

Run in order. Output at most one clause per caught drift.

Step 1 — State the drift as observable facts, not motive

Write what was objectively true, from the contract plus the delivered artifact — not why you think you did it.

• Good (fact): "[M2] required backend persistence (hard). Delivered code shipped the frontend with hardcoded data; no API or DB write exists."
• Bad (motive): "I thought the backend wasn't really necessary." Self-reported reasons are unreliable; a clause built on one prevents the wrong thing. Base the clause on the observable situation → action.

Step 2 — Draft the clause: WHEN / DON'T / INSTEAD

WHEN    <the situation that was true, generalized away from the specific subject>
DON'T   <the concrete wrong action taken>
INSTEAD <the concrete correct action>

Governing principle: abstract the situation, keep the behavior concrete, base WHEN on facts not motive. Drop the subject (feature name, file); keep the condition. The condition makes it match a future case; the subject makes it useless.

Step 3 — Four acceptance gates (record only if it passes ALL four)

Run cheapest first.

1. Actionability — can the clause answer, concretely: what condition triggers it, what it forbids, and what to do instead? If any of the three is vague ("be more careful", "don't be lazy", "implement fully"), it is not a clause — discard. This gate exists to kill un-triggerable garbage before spending effort on the rest.

2. Replay — had this clause been in the contract this time, would it have caught this drift? If no → it does not describe what happened; rewrite.

3. Generalization — would it catch a *different* instance of the same situation (different feature, same shape)? If no → WHEN is still stuck to the subject; abstract further.

4. Over-reach — would it wrongly block a *legitimate* action elsewhere (e.g. the user explicitly approved frontend-first)? If yes → too broad; narrow it, usually by tightening WHEN.

If a candidate cannot pass all four, the lesson is not ready. Record nothing rather than record noise.

Step 4 — Provisional vs confirmed

A single occurrence may be a fluke; do not over-fit.

• First time a situation is seen → record as a provisional Observation [O#].
• A later caught drift whose WHEN matches an existing Observation → promote to a confirmed Clause [L#], increment seen-count, remove the Observation.
• Only confirmed clauses are auto-loaded into future contracts; Observations are watched, not enforced.

Severity exception — confirm on first occurrence (skip the provisional stage) when the drift is any of:

1. mock / stub / fake data passed off as a real implementation;

2. hiding, deleting, or disabling a feature the user explicitly required;

3. weakening or deleting tests to force a pass;

4. data loss, broken persistence, or corrupted user data;

5. a security / permissions / auth mis-change;

6. a declared Preserve item broken;

7. downgrading Complete / end-to-end work to frontend-only.

Mark these severity: high and note confirmed on first occurrence.

Step 5 — Propose, then write only after confirmation

Atlas.md is long-term project state — a wrong clause silently shapes every future contract. So the model does not write it unsupervised. Default flow:

caught drift (auto handoff from Final Audit, or other §2 trigger)
 → draft clause (Steps 1–2)
 → pass fou

… (full content is in the download package)